Tableau went public this week, raising over $250mm for the data company, as covered this week in the Puget Sound Business Journal. Tableau will now trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "DATA," and the Tableau executives rang the opening bell in New York Friday morning.

CEO Christian Chabot said the goal of the IPO was not to raise money – although it certainly did – but rather, to increase awareness of the company.

Chabot and his co-founders retained control of 48% of the company, as anticipated in their 10-year plan, which included bootstrapping the company in 2003 and limiting the amount of venture capital investments in the company to Friday's IPO. "The most successful software companies are those where the founders retained control," he said. He pointed to the most successful software company IPOs, including Google, Microsoft, Apple and Oracle. Link to full coverage here.